Monday

Hip Hop artiste, Oluwatobiloba Daniel Anidugbe, popularly known as Kiss Daniel, has said that he feels bad at times for not practising his discipline as a water engineer – a course he spent five years to study in the university.

Daniel, who was catapulted to national reckoning in November 2014, following the release of his chart-topping single, Woju, finished with a Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.32, just a little short of a First Class, from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State in 2013. With such an enviable grade, the lanky singer knows he could have ended up with one of the several engineering firms scattered across the country had he not chosen another path.

Currently, Daniel is signed on to G-Worldwide Entertainment. The 21-year-old Abeokuta native who has gone on to taste fame and fortune through music, told Saturday Beats earlier in the week at an event to unveil his debut album, New Era, that with the amount of energy he put into his studies while at the university, sometimes he wished he had practised for even a day.

“Some of my classmates in the university call me at times and when we discuss, I see that they had become very big men and women in the course of practice with some even owning houses in the United States. After these friendly interactions, honestly I sometimes wish I had also practised as a water engineer because for me, my greatest endeavour in life yet is the five years I spent at the university. But I sacrificed all of that because of the love I have for music.

“This is not saying I regret my journey into music, no. In fact, I am very grateful to God for how far he has brought me in such a short time. Through music, I have been able to fulfil many of the promises I made to my father,” he said.

Consisting whopping 17 tracks with three of them featuring label mate and friend, Sugarboy, Daniel said theNew Era album is his own way of proving a lot of people wrong, especially individuals who once told him that good music had no place in Nigeria’s entertainment industry.

“When I came into the industry, a lot of people said to succeed, I had to do this and that. But by the grace of God, I succeeded by only doing one thing, delivering good music. People say good music doesn’t sell in Nigeria; but God has used me to prove such people wrong.

“Throughout this new album, which drops into the market on May 1, 2016, my birthday, I only featured Sugarboy, my label mate. It has been a long journey since 2014 and I am happy to have finally achieved this target after two years of hard work,” he said.

According to the artiste who told Saturday Beats that patience had been his greatest asset, delivering quality music with strong messages requires a lot of brainwork. He said the legacy of legends like Fela Anikulapo Kuti was enough guiding principle for anybody to do good music in the country.